So could just play the first Shadow Warrior reboot game (2013) because it was possible to own it forever for free in a span of one day.I played it on Hard.

Very fun, around the level of Serious Sam. Mostly because you can just kill tons of shit in one shot and the chain explosions are big. Your character becomes a goddamn all-purpose powerhouse - you get a shitton of weapons, your katana gets a lot of skills that you might as well just use that weapon only, and you're able to use a body shield (this sucks actually, never used and never enhanced it), heal himself for a certain %, a fast shockwave to push enemies down and an earthquake spell that makes enemies stand still in the air for some seconds.

It works a lot like JPN action/slashy games like Capcom's DMC (Bulletstorm too but it feels closer to DMC cause you have a melee weapon) where you find waves of enemies, you fight them, and depending how the battle goes you get a rank. Good rank depends on how many enemy attacks you dodged, the time spent on the battle and how many attacks you used, be it from sword+skills and weapons. Get a high rank and you get more karma. Karma points are used to get sword skills, better dashing, more HP and a crapload of passive skills. Karma is also found in some blood pots that are only available as secrets. All the spells are instead attained as "Powers" that require crystals you find along the way. Then there's money which is used to buy ammo for your weapon (anytime) and powering them up, too.Either way, in a single playthrough it's impossible powering up everything, so you have to figure out some good build. I went with the mobile skills ones as Wang has this ability to dash all over the place, some 3D Ninja Gaiden level shit. Sword skills are essential and there are ones that let you drain HP from enemies with special attacks that pretty much break the game.When your sword is on you can throw shurikens (infinite amount) but they get useless extremely quickly.

The game really felt easy actually but then I'm used to this shit. It's based on the Hard Rest engine (with similar restrictions, movement feel and recycled assets) and Hard Reset on Hard difficulty was at least 100 times harder than this but then that game was very limited in what you could do. It starts to get tough only late game.

Your char sadly can't swim (just like in Painkiller rofl), and the fall damage makes no sense. It's really easy to die by dashing from a staircase and falling down, and dying as a result. It's like fall damage is multiplied by x5 in certain ways. There are some intentional design choices that make no sense at times but at least they wanted you to avoid camping and keep moving.

A GREAT THING ABOUT THIS GAME is that the items that are inside boxes or anything that you can open, are picked up automatically after opening a box item. You just open a box, go away, you'll still get the items which is mostly money (ammo and health boxes are picked up only when they aren't maxed yet).

Secrets are just finding these Karma Pots and some gnomes like things that give you money. Some are easy to find, some are unnecessarily hard. There are also some secrets in which you enter parts from the original old game, with same graphics to boot.

There are also bosses, and against bosses you use the regular weapons. You shoot certain parts of it and the fights are divided in phases. The animations are really good I suppose for a FPS game. There's one boss where you fight one on one a villain with a katana.

The story is ok, it ends not exactly in the happiest way but then there's a sequel so idk what happens there.

Not many types of enemies. There are humans, found very rarely except in the first level and in the last few levels, that come in many and are super fun fodder; then there are the regular bipedal demons that either claw you or shoot fireballs to you. Certain monsters have an ability to enter a rage status where they hit harder, dash faster and can barely be stunned.There are flying monsters you can beat with weapons or with the sword's ranged ki slash, there are explosive green demons who shoot explosive green rolling balls, guys with long hair who are equipped with double katanas or shurikens and are able to teleport or become invisible.Then there are the big guys - a big bull demon with two axes who can throw flame waves, some magic hook to pull you closer and an ability to enrage other enemies. Then there's a green shaman who can revive, summon skeletons, throw green flames all over the place. Lastly there are some sorts of ice gorilla monsters who are anhnoying as shit - come in pairs and can only be damaged on their backs, fuckers made the game suddenly tougher.

Weapons are the katana, revolver, a machinegun, a crossbow, a shotgun, a flamethrower, a rocket launcher and two special weapons - a demon heart and a demon head. I hardly used these - the demon heart makes no sense how it's but it can kill instantly a bunch of close low-tier monsters. The demon head shoots a constant homing energy beam, and it's dropped by the bull demons after you level up a certain passive (not sure which but I believe it's the one that improves damage done to enemies' heads).All the weapons can have powerups except the Katana (this has story mode powerups, as you have to collect the other sword pieces which is the game's CONSTANT MAIN OBJECTIVE) and the two demon things. Weapon powerups always consist of the secondary fire, a passive boost to the primary fire and a special function unique to the weapon. And then you can buy ammo. All weapons have been useful save for the shotgun (the flamethrower was good this time around and had a really decent secondary fire which is a flaming bomb). You can like, do a lot of stuff against the enemies.

Anything else to say... well, the game gets better after two levels. In the early game you have barely any weapon and no skills/spells, so it's really basic until you learn some shit and by then the game will start to throw you waves of enemies and you get enough tools to have fun.

Overall fun game, doesn't look visually as good as Hard Reset (cyberpunk theme too overpowered) but holy fuck at least it's more balanced and not frustrating.